Movies

Love lost

Relationship woes: Putra (Mikael Andre) and Luna (Nina Iskandar) play a couple who can’t seem to get their marriage right in Muka Surat Cinta.

Pierre Andre’s latest film focuses on the idea of forsaken romance.

DIRECTOR Pierre Andre had The Notebook in mind when he came up with the script for Muka Surat Cinta. As a fan of love stories, the idea of forsaken love has always intrigued the actor-turned-director.

Muka Surat Cinta tells the story of married couple Putra (played by Mikael Andre) and Luna (Nina Iskandar). Despite Luna’s best efforts to make their marriage work, Putra feels that things are going nowhere. Luna also faces another challenge in Nurul (Atikah Suhaime), a girl who has a crush on Putra and will stop at nothing to win his heart.

“In Muka Surat Cinta, I want to focus on the message that we’re always searching for love. It’s something I want to explore with the audience, that perhaps the person you’re looking for is just right in front of you,” said Pierre, 28, during a phone interview.

Later, Putra comes across a secondhand book and becomes obsessed with it. In the book, there is a love quote written by its previous owner.

“Putra finds a quote that really moves him in a novel terpakai. The journey begins when he goes on a search to find the person who wrote the quote.”

Pierre had initially written the script for Muka Surat Cinta as an independent short film. And instead of Muka Surat Cinta, the original title was Perempuan Muka Surat Tujuh.

“When I pitched the script to (production company) Metrowealth, they asked me to expand the story to make it more suitable for a mainstream audience. I didn’t make a lot of changes to the original script. I think the only major change was the film title.”

The film also sees Pierre collaborating with his younger brother Mikael. Previously, the two worked together on the horror film Highland Tower.

“Sometimes, it’s quite hard because he’s young and there is a lot for him to learn. Still, I’m really glad that he got to embody the part really well.”

Pierre described his forlorn hero Putra as “the strong, silent type”. “There are some things that Putra struggles to say. Eventually, he learns that sometimes, you can convey more by not even saying anything at all.”
n Muka Surat Cinta opens nationwide on Jan 16.